I got a HDD dock from startech.com. It works great and does everything I need. The problem is it has the brightest goddamn blue LED I have ever seen. It is so unnecessarily bright. My eyes hurt looking in the same direction as it. What the fuck should I do? Return it? De solder the stupid ass LED? It works great aside from this one issue.
Edit: I opened the thing and drew with sharpie on the LED. It’s bearable to look at now.
No, but I did case mod a computer for this once. My Fractal Node 202 my last computer is in has a very bright white power button LED, too damn bright. Fortunately in this case it’s a standard 5mm through hole LED standing up off the board on its leads a bit, bent to point out the front. So I bent it to point upward. Dimmed it down significantly.
Blue LEDs are the worst offenders. No need to return it as long as you keep a bit of black tape ready. If you still need it as an indicator, you can use layers of yellowish tape. The one used while painting your walls works great. Masking tape it’s called in English.
lol, I know this pain. about 20 yrs ago i bought a shiny new pc case and expected the red leds, it had 2 super bright blue leds that were either solid on(power) or flashing(drive activity), this pc was next to my bed pointing across my bed. the entire room was lit by these and hard blue circles were projected on the wall. ended up taping a cardboard strip over them.
Depends on the product and how inexpensive it is but generally avoid touch devices or anything with led or lights on them that are not needed because I don’t need a fucking touch display for something a button can do.
I bought a air fryer a week ago and couldn’t find one that had simple dials and buttons. It’s fucking disgusting and it’s so bright too. But hey, I can use it as a night light when I’m getting water I guess
I either tape the things with Isolation in dark to see nothing or the Painters-Tape which is yellow and partly lets light through.
But colored isolation band lets the light through a bit too.
I have marker pens and led dims so…no
Likely not, it seems wasteful if the product is otherwise good in all other important regards. I’d just cover up the LED with tape or paint.
Yes
A sharpie also works.
No, one of my mesh WiFi routers is in my room and too bright at night, I just put tape on it. Problem solved.
Every modern router that I’ve worked with has an option to turn the lights off at night. Does the control panel of your router have that too?
It technically has got that setting, but sometimes I’ll do a weird shift or do something that requires me to sleep when it would otherwise be on. I don’t want it permanently off because if I pick it up and look under I can still see the light if I need to and that’s quicker than changing settings in the app.
The tape works and you can’t see it, so I have no need to do it in software.
Yes but also I’ve just put electrical tape over many an item.
The RGB craze is the worst.
Last pc i built i had 1 hard request, “I don’t want a damn xmas tree in my pc.” girl laughed and the only light is from the heat sync :(
Amen. I do love LEDs since their dawn and have a big-ass collection. But on every single stupid computer thing? I don’t wanna pay extra just because my mouse can have stupid rgb-lights. Or my damn RAM. It adds absolutely nothing, costs more and has another part that will go broke.
I hate the rgb-craze…
One my Xbox controller’s light is so bright it could power our solar-panels. I had to put multiple Band-Aids on it 🫤
Yeah it sucks that I sleep in the same room as my computer. It’s damn near impossible to find a case without RGB.
Should be possible to just not plug them in.
But I have no idea why they are there in the first place.
Tape
The problem with that is the LED also functions as the power button.
Carefully trimmed sticker?
EDIT: Ah, I see you’ve handled it. Carry on, then.
i had a monitor like that once. big bright af blue power light baked into the power button, bottom center of the bezel. blue led was the ‘new’ thing back then. the barton-era matching pc (which i didn’t have) had a larger matching button on its front. if you know your '00s pavilions, you know the ones.
it was horrible. that monitor lived its entire life with a black piece of paper taped over the whole switch and light. i was not saddened when it finally gave up and failed to turn on. i was more annoyed that it took 15 years for it to fail.
Press on the tape?
The problem is it’s a weird recessed button.
I would find this very annoying.
Nail polish might work.
Loose piece of tape … then press on the weird recessed piece of tape
Tape a dry bean into the recess.
This is a hilarious solution
LMAO, maybe next time
Mask off the dock one spray of spray paint in just the LED resses
I’ve not returned an item over it, but I’ve often wondered if there was a market for a company which de-LEDs items.
I’ve use a black sharpie to “tint” LEDs before. Your mileage may vary though, depending on the kind and shape of LED.
I am also a hater of unnecessarily bright lights. In your shoes, presuming I’m happy with the product otherwise, I would paint over it with a bit of nail polish.
You can get polish in any color you want these days, and it’s very cheap. It dries fast and it comes with a very small brush. You can apply one coat, see if the led still shines through too much, apply another coat 15mins later once the first layer is dry. Repeat.
Edit: seeing the photo I realize the shape it has. Be careful with the polish if you use it, one coat or two probably will be okay on the inner surface but don’t add more or the button may get stuck. Also wait extra before even daring to test button functionality, you don’t want the button scraping off semi dry polish.
I might just open the thing and paint over the actual LED.
That’s a good idea if it’s an option
I opened it up and coated it with a sharpie. It’s good enough.
The xbox Button on my Elite Controller is too damn bright when i play in darkness. Ive put black electric tape over it and i‘m happy.
I think I remember finding an option to dim that.
I remembered it too but was way too lazy to look it up and just wanted a quick fix. I’ll look it up eventually, maybe
